Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?

[Ryan Elder]

I'm working on a project with a composer, but some instruments are hard to sound natural, since we are using pre-recorded samples, rather than have musicians play for us. But some instruments, like the harmonica or bass flute for example, are really hard to edit together, to make it sound like they are being played naturally.

Would a more experienced audio editor help perhaps, if anyone knows more about this?

[Paul R Johnson]

Oh no - here we go again. The problem here is you don't have a musician, just an composer who clearly is music technology incompetent. When you use prerecorded samples, they have to be played. By a musician. As if they are a real instrument - which they are.

Cinematic Oboe - YouTube

This track has not used a single microphone on real instruments played live - it is entirely artificial played by me on keyboards in the studio, and few people ever realised I suspect. To be honest, it doesn't really matter - it's what it sounds like that is important. If you don't have people who can do this working for you - find some!

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay but how is a real musician supposed to play pre-recorded samples though? Or what do you mean exactly? you are saying that a real musician has to play the samples on a computer of the recordings?

[Paul R Johnson]

ryan demo on Vimeo

Harmonica and bass flute - although that is a very strange combination so I added a few other woods. Shot
on my phone. NO editing - just recorded what I played. You can see my left hand and the right, plus if you stop it, you can probably see the screens. You have to play it, NOT edit it, to make a harmonica work.

Edit. Forgot to turn metronome off sorry!

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay I see what you mean. I feel that there is something the harmonica is missing and I found out it was called 'trilling', in musical terms. The harmonica has trilling in this example:

Once Upon A Time In The West - Man With A Harmonica - YouTube

But do you know how to create the trilling, since we have been having trouble with that?

[Paul R Johnson]

Sigh! This is like when I was a music teacher!

First thing there are NO trills. Just three repeated notes in the motif. The thing with this type of thing is to think about how instruments work. Harmonicas can pitch bend on the draw, it doesn’t work the same way on the blow. So you need for this to play it for real a chromatic harmonica, the type made famous by Larry Adler, and probably a Hohner. The E-C-D, to the E Bend is the vital bit with the pitch bend on the D, often starting not quite on D, but half way between it and the next note above so more like an Eb sliding up to E. Take this bend and slap loads of warm reverb on it. Done. Frankly, if this is beyond your technical skill to knock up, you could with average musical ability record a real harmonica doing that with five minutes practice on the harmonica.

I’ve got a chromatic harmonica here, you need two kinds of modulation to mimic it. You can modulate frequency, as in changing the shape of your embouchure and then wobble your hand to amplitude modulate it.

Frankly you could set this as a task to 18 yr olds in college and they would knock it up in an hour or two.

I would advise caution however. Harmonicas are fatally linked to westerns. The movie world find it difficult to break it away. If your movie is in a desert, with clear sky’s, and people ride horses, it works. It’s risky for any other usage. To much a cliche sound in my view. To record that clip, the first thing tha5 came into my head was that western sound.

[Brian Drysdale]

On one short film I made the composer created his own samples (these may have been chords) using musicians he knew, the piano was also selected for its "sound". The next short I did with him he created an entire orchestra using the samples he already had.

I'm not sure if he played the piano itself for the recording (as against a sample). because there was an element of performance involved. The funders like the temp track, so the composer offered it as an option, however, the "performance" didn't match the temp track, while the "performance" on his own composition matched the feel of the temp track.

Don't get locked into the music too soon, the final film may take you in a different direction.

[Paul R Johnson]

How about this harmonica, Ryan. Not so westernish?
https://www.eastanglianradio.com/harm.mp3

You're probably too young to know what song it's from.

[Josh Bass]

Paul, since we’re here and derailment is par for the course in these threads, do you think ALL instruments can be sampled realistically, or at least well enough to fool most folks? Drums are a given, ditto piano. I play guitar and bass so I have those covered. But I have tried things with horns/wind instruments samples and they just dont sound right....easiest way to put is too digital/synth-y.

Couple things may the culprit here... first off these are the samples included with Logic (Logic comes with a huge sample library), so perhaps their quality is inferior to dedicated sample packs by whoever makes them.

Second, even though I dont know jack about wind instruments, I know they each have a limited range and Logic doesnt put a limit on that range when you trigger the samples...i.e you can play an oboe or something as high in pitch or low as you want but since a real one only go low as x and as high as y, pitches above and below those are going to sound increasingly fake/bad/digital/strained.

Third is my weak understanding of music theory/arrangement/composition. Good enough for simple rock, but if you start trying to do something with layers of horns that are used in a way a real composer would never use them, youre probably going to get less than stellar results.

I can post an example later if you want.

[Paul R Johnson]

Hmm that's a good question. Some instruments can get away with the mimicry hurried in the mix, but the one that jumps out as always badly done are saxophones. They ALWAYS sounds like a really good and expensive Kazoo! The range thing used to be a give-away, but now far less so because since Kontakt came on the market, the way samples are presented stop you making these mistakes, and they will only play in the correct range. If anyone is interested in composing - search out Guy Michelmore on Youtube. He is an ex-TV journalist who is now a full time composer for TV and movies and is also tech savvy, so his videos are excellent - plus he is wild eccentric and mega talented. You can watch him compose and thanks to him mainly, I now use loads of Spitfire products and they get recorded in the worlds best studios, by the worlds best musicians (Don't forget I'm a Brit). They play properly, once you get the idea of how to play them.

Most bad music is not dependent on the absolute audio quality, but on the playing. Saxes are terrible in general, but if you play them right - people don't notice. I've got a few guitar sample packages and if they are used properly, you cannot tell. Even I get confused which is real sometimes when I press play. Oboes are pretty good now, as are most woodwind. Saxes are tricky because you can blow them wild, you can change the pitch, change the tone - all with your mouth. Oboes can't really do vibrato, just tremolo. A little with a good player, but not a lot. You hear people using modulation on oboes and it gives the game away. Logic samples like some of the cubase ones that are free are ensemble patches - they're fine layered up, but useless in general for featured instruments. Once you start to buy serious packages - and we can easily be talking 500+ Pounds, not Dollars - and you get some amazing stuff. Some of the piano instruments have a Steinway, and one has an American Steinway and a British Steinway - same piano, same design but subtly different sound.

Pianos are a good example - the giveaway is many people don't have a sustain pedal. That is the essential feature for realistic piano.

When you start to do composing, the usual fault is too many notes. Think a string quartet - the most you have is 4 instruments normally only playing one note - so when you play block chords it fights and sounds less realistic. More later.

[Josh Bass]

In the words of a famous man, ok thanks. I have definitely heard the kazoo thing.

[Ryan Elder]

Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson

Sigh! This is like when I was a music teacher!

First thing there are NO trills. Just three repeated notes in the motif. The thing with this type of thing is to think about how instruments work. Harmonicas can pitch bend on the draw, it doesn’t work the same way on the blow. So you need for this to play it for real a chromatic harmonica, the type made famous by Larry Adler, and probably a Hohner. The E-C-D, to the E Bend is the vital bit with the pitch bend on the D, often starting not quite on D, but half way between it and the next note above so more like an Eb sliding up to E. Take this bend and slap loads of warm reverb on it. Done. Frankly, if this is beyond your technical skill to knock up, you could with average musical ability record a real harmonica doing that with five minutes practice on the harmonica.

I’ve got a chromatic harmonica here, you need two kinds of modulation to mimic it. You can modulate frequency, as in changing the shape of your embouchure and then wobble your hand to amplitude modulate it.

Frankly you could set this as a task to 18 yr olds in college and they would knock it up in an hour or two.

I would advise caution however. Harmonicas are fatally linked to westerns. The movie world find it difficult to break it away. If your movie is in a desert, with clear sky’s, and people ride horses, it works. It’s risky for any other usage. To much a cliche sound in my view. To record that clip, the first thing tha5 came into my head was that western sound.

Oh okay, I can try editing it like that. I just thought that the harmonica would sound good for eerie suspense like how it does in that clip. I don't recall hearing it much in Westerns, but I would have to rewatch Westerns I have seen to remember. I do not mean to scream Western necessarily, just go for a suspense sounding music, and thought it would work. I didn't think of the harmonica as a cliche though, because I haven't heard it in am movie, that I can recall for so long, that I thought it might be a rivival.

Originally Posted by Brian Drysdale

On one short film I made the composer created his own samples (these may have been chords) using musicians he knew, the piano was also selected for its "sound". The next short I did with him he created an entire orchestra using the samples he already had.

I'm not sure if he played the piano itself for the recording (as against a sample). because there was an element of performance involved. The funders like the temp track, so the composer offered it as an option, however, the "performance" didn't match the temp track, while the "performance" on his own composition matched the feel of the temp track.

Don't get locked into the music too soon, the final film may take you in a different direction.

Perhaps I am getting locked in soon, but since I am doing rewrites, deciding and budgeting on music now helps me rewrite, if I can hear the music in the scene, if that makes sense. I was also doing a budget on how much the instrument packages would cost. Plus I figure, since covid is preventing me from shooting, I might as well do other things in the project at the moment though...

Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson

How about this harmonica, Ryan. Not so westernish?
https://www.eastanglianradio.com/harm.mp3

You're probably too young to know what song it's from.

That's not bad. It has a bit of electronic or electric sound to it, or maybe some sort of post-processing? And no, I don't know what song it's from :).

Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson

Hmm that's a good question. Some instruments can get away with the mimicry hurried in the mix, but the one that jumps out as always badly done are saxophones. They ALWAYS sounds like a really good and expensive Kazoo! The range thing used to be a give-away, but now far less so because since Kontakt came on the market, the way samples are presented stop you making these mistakes, and they will only play in the correct range. If anyone is interested in composing - search out Guy Michelmore on Youtube. He is an ex-TV journalist who is now a full time composer for TV and movies and is also tech savvy, so his videos are excellent - plus he is wild eccentric and mega talented. You can watch him compose and thanks to him mainly, I now use loads of Spitfire products and they get recorded in the worlds best studios, by the worlds best musicians (Don't forget I'm a Brit). They play properly, once you get the idea of how to play them.

Most bad music is not dependent on the absolute audio quality, but on the playing. Saxes are terrible in general, but if you play them right - people don't notice. I've got a few guitar sample packages and if they are used properly, you cannot tell. Even I get confused which is real sometimes when I press play. Oboes are pretty good now, as are most woodwind. Saxes are tricky because you can blow them wild, you can change the pitch, change the tone - all with your mouth. Oboes can't really do vibrato, just tremolo. A little with a good player, but not a lot. You hear people using modulation on oboes and it gives the game away. Logic samples like some of the cubase ones that are free are ensemble patches - they're fine layered up, but useless in general for featured instruments. Once you start to buy serious packages - and we can easily be talking 500+ Pounds, not Dollars - and you get some amazing stuff. Some of the piano instruments have a Steinway, and one has an American Steinway and a British Steinway - same piano, same design but subtly different sound.

Pianos are a good example - the giveaway is many people don't have a sustain pedal. That is the essential feature for realistic piano.

When you start to do composing, the usual fault is too many notes. Think a string quartet - the most you have is 4 instruments normally only playing one note - so when you play block chords it fights and sounds less realistic. More later.

Well actually we just decided to use a bass sax for part of the music. I think the only instrumentalist I know is a guitar player, and a piano player. So I might be able to get a real musician playing for those, but I feel everything else, may have to be pre-recorded samples, but is that bad, or will it sound bad for woodwinds and brass then?

[Paul R Johnson]

You don't understand. Samples are not bad. You can have a 3 million dollar Stradivari violin sample that will sound amazing played on a keyboard by somebody who knows how, and for most people, indistinguishable from the real instrument being recorded - because of course thats how the sample get recorded.

Does your composer have a DAW with piles of sample libraries?
Is he able to use them properly?

I'm lost because I assumed your composer must be able to play surely? What are you playing these samples on? You only know one instrumentalist in addition to the composer, surely? I'm wondering why the composer is struggling with such basic music fundamentals?
I've been madly trying to get stuff published over the past few days so try this one - the flute is sample based, the piano is real, the bass is real and the drums are samples - can you tell?

YouTube (Short URL)

[Brian Drysdale]

You're spending too much time worrying about budgeting things.

There are a number of instruments used for suspense. It's matter of the sound that fits the world you're creating and the final film may be very different to how you conceived it while writing it.

[Ryan Elder]

Yeah that's true, I just thought I should have some idea of what I want beforehand, for when I do the execution of it. I know there are other instruments for suspense, but for some reason I can't put into words, I thought this one would best for some parts.

Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson

You don't understand. Samples are not bad. You can have a 3 million dollar Stradivari violin sample that will sound amazing played on a keyboard by somebody who knows how, and for most people, indistinguishable from the real instrument being recorded - because of course thats how the sample get recorded.

Does your composer have a DAW with piles of sample libraries?
Is he able to use them properly?

I'm lost because I assumed your composer must be able to play surely? What are you playing these samples on? You only know one instrumentalist in addition to the composer, surely? I'm wondering why the composer is struggling with such basic music fundamentals?
I've been madly trying to get stuff published over the past few days so try this one - the flute is sample based, the piano is real, the bass is real and the drums are samples - can you tell?
https://youtu.be/h_5EwHaWWMw

Oh my composer can play guitar, and keyboard instruments. But I know two other people one has a real piano, and one has more guitar selections, if they would be useful as well. I and the composer only just started not too long ago, but so far, the viols sound really real to me. But the guitar and harmonica sound kind of synthetic to me. Maybe we just need better samples?

And no I couldn't tell what was samples in your work there, it all sounded real to me.